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Saturday, July 21, 2007

Weekend Cat Blogging: Cat Names

When Scoop decided he was moving in, and we thought we traveled too much to live with a cat, our cries of “Scoop that cat out of the house” didn’t put him off. Hence the name Scoop.

Au is named after his golden coat (AU for Gold) and also because he bites when we play rough games; so we’re always saying, "au, au, au!"

I love the whole process of cat naming and think the psychology of pet naming is worthy of academic research.

Are those who give their pets aristocratic names like Duke and Datin (Malay for the wife of a baronet) trying to climb the social ladder or merely acknowledging the innate superiority of their cat friends?

Do cats with names like Alfred, Suzie and Annie live with humans who are more anthropomorphic than cats who are called Fluffy, Tiger and Tinkerbell?

Are cats with distinguished names like Augustus and Divinia more likely to be sedate than colleagues called Whirlwind and Lightening?

The best name I've heard in ages for a cat is Cockroach: because he eats everything in sight and moves like lightening!

We used to have these 3 sibling cats named Chot, Dot and Ot. Our daughter first named Chot out of humor, then named Dot because she had so many spots (dots) on her body. Finally she ran out of names for the third one, hence, Ot as rhymes...now we have 12 cats with names ringing from BK (Bulu Kembang), Rexton (the bump is big), Shaggy (fluffy hair), Elsa (with hair that looks like the famed lioness) and Dexter who had polio when he was a kitten.

If I ever have a cat again...if it's a male he'll be named Kitkat (I seem to have a thing for food names) & Belle if it's a female.

When I volunteered in PAWS 3 yrs ago, some of the cats which I looked after had names like -* Monkey...and she does look a lot like one!! * Dasher, Cupid, Comet, Blitzen...sounds familiar? And those kitties weren't even born anywhere near Christmas!* Flag - who was my fave cat as he's very chatty. But it was a lucky name...I heard that he was adopted & presented as a Christmas gift to the family of the Czech ambassador! I wonder how he's doing now...